By Your Side
by StZen
Summary: Having fallen back into the tight and unforgiving clutches of Black Dranzer, Kai emerges for the first time in months, to visit perhaps the one person who can break his grip on darkness. Kai/Max, yaoi or friendship. Not quite what it seems...


_Rating_: K+

_Genre_: Tragedy

_Summary_: Having fallen back into the tight and unforgiving clutches of Black Dranzer, Kai emerges for the first time in months, to visit perhaps the one person who can break his grip on darkness. Kai/Max, yaoi or friendship. Not quite what it seems.

_Background:_ When the series portrayed a heroic and perfect defeat of Boris and his new cooperation, they didn't show the full story; only the ending. In that short time Kai found himself associated with Boris once again in order to defeat Tyson, he got more than he bargained for; a reunion with an old enemy ally. The BBA Revolution thought the drama was over once BEGA was defeated, but their world was suddenly flipped upside down once again. But this time it was even worse than before. With every separation, the suffocating bond between Kai and Black Dranzer only strengthened. And so when the enigma rediscovered its power, danger resurfaced. Nobody had seen it coming. Kai willingly allowed himself to be controlled; stubbornly insisting to himself that he was the dominator. The others didn't know what to do, and one by one, they tried to coax Kai back to their side. One by one, they failed. Their bitbeasts were seized and sealed, trapped in a parallel universe of obscurity, never to be seen again. Their beyblading days were over. In their brutal battles Kai had taken everything away from them, before departing from the scene and never returning. It was the last they saw of him.

_(A/N):_ I originally planned this out to be a whole massive tragic Kai/Max yaoi story, beginning when Kai tried to join BEGA. But then I decided to shorten it to this one-shot (my favourite part of the original long story, which included that whole background section you just read), make the pairing an optional strong friendship, and completely change the ending. You'll see what I mean; this was only supposed to be about half-way through the story initially.

The whole concept might seem rather random and far-fetched…sorry :P that's just how it is.

* * *

_By Your Side_

_by StZen_

* * *

It could only have been so long, he supposed, before something emerged to close the aporetic gap. He knew it could always happen to anybody. But why did it have to happen to him? He least of all deserved it, that anybody could be certain of. And yet, cruel fate had decided it time to pay Kai back it seemed, forcibly tear the enigma from his shadowed shell and give him a violent shake. It seemed this was the only way to do it, even Kai could admit that, and to cruel fate one innocent life was nothing against the agony which could be inflicted by way of reproach. Reproach reserved for Kai, and only Kai.

How long he had hidden himself away he was completely unaware. When every waking moment's spent in a shadow one loses their sense of time completely. For the first few weeks it had stuck with him, but all became lost after a while, and if it weren't for the dark sky at night he would never know anything about the time of day.

But nevertheless, he had been watching. They would never see him, but he kept his eye on them. All he knew, he watched over, for what reason even he couldn't fathom. But his vigilance had granted him one thing to be obliged for, though it was still unbeknownst to him whether he was glad of it or not. His ever-listening ears had helped him learn of the situation, a fatal problem concerning someone he could never deny had been close to him. And for this reason, Kai found himself presently surrounded by pale blue walls and fluorescent lighting, a far cry from the dim shadow he curled up in every night between two buildings on the commercial street.

From all angles people bustled past him, all with urgent destinations from the emergency room to the washroom, and he stood centre of it all, still wondering how his determination was strong enough to allow him in there. He stuck out terribly amongst the other people, and yet they seemed not to notice him for the most part. But despite his rags of filth and dishevelled mane of hair, he felt no shame at his appearance. He had no means by which to alter it, and even if he could he knew there wasn't time to waste. He'd chosen the latest hour to visit on purpose; a far lesser chance of being caught by…by one of them. By his…friends.

Friend? The concept seemed so alien to him. Never had he been taken with the idea, and never had he sought one out in his life. Those who once stole his acceptance against his will (or so he believed) were nothing to him any longer but the defeated: the extinct. Along with their sacred spirits, and what had once been his.

And yet, there he was. Standing along in the centre of the hospital, going out of his way and against his judgement, simply to visit one of them. To have what could very well be one last moment. The last chance…

Kai practically fell back into a chair and buried his head into his hands. What was he doing there? After everything that had happened, what could he possibly find to say now? Would his appearance just manage to make everything worse? He didn't want that, and he knew it. But equally, he knew he wouldn't be torn away. If ever his whim had a prospect to dominate, this was it.

But all the while, it lay still. Sat deep in his pocket, where it always lay, Black Dranzer remained dormant for the time being. It hadn't made Kai change his mind; it never directly did anything, simply made a silent scarring influence. Kai would never accept this should the concept be indicated, and yet even at a time like this, the beyblade sat with him like always. Like all spirits, they were bound, and where one went the other would follow. Kai resented this to his core, but knew that even he couldn't resist being bound forever. It was beginning to get the better of him, and though he didn't entirely realise it yet, he was allowing it.

'Sir?' a woman with dishevelled hair, huge dark rings below her eyes and a facial expression to match her weary tone stepped in front of Kai. He remained with his gaze fixated on the beige floor, decorated with a hideous pattern of grey, baby blue and pale pink dots which nobody else would ever take notice of.

'Sir,' she tried again impatiently. 'Visiting hours are almost over, but I can take you to see your friend now.'

Kai's eyebrows twitched. How long had it been since somebody had referred to Max as being his friend? By those who knew them well enough it had been at least a year, but with Kai's lack of knowledge of what day or month he was presently in, his thoughts could easily be inaccurate.

He stood slowly and followed the woman, whose plastic heels clopped noisily against the floor and woke several of the sleeping occupants of the many emptying waiting rooms. They passed several on their way, and Kai locked eyes with not a single one of them. No opportunity to catch sight of a victim, as though the pain inflicted on them had somehow been his doing. For all he knew, it could have been, somewhere along the line. But whether it was the possibility of an oppression long forgotten, or inability to accept the fact that he walked in their direction, Kai's gaze was on the floor as he lagged behind ineptly, being led to a door behind which lay an obstacle unavoidable, even to him.

The room was bright considering the obscurity outside the window, a hideous hue of pale blue fluorescence made Kai squint as he entered until his eyes could adjust. He paused for a moment to glance around, looking briefly over his shoulder as the teak doors swung shut behind him and closed his escape from the dungeon he'd admitted himself into. The whole area smelled strongly of the most unnatural of air fresheners and disinfectant. The nurse in front of him didn't stop when he did, and he watched her shove drips and machinery out of her path as she waded over to a bed on the far end of the ward, its occupant concealed from Kai's view by a curtain that matched the light.

Kai held his breath and stepped forward, an expression of stone against the fear he could feel rising in his lungs.

He'd half hoped to find him asleep, but the nurse dragged away the curtain before Kai was fully prepared, to see a boy almost unrecognisable glance his way under the nurse's arm, and turn his head slowly back to the wall opposite. It were as though he hadn't seen Kai at all.

The nurse left without another word and Kai awkwardly stepped out to stand beside him. Max didn't alter his gaze, his face so set it even made Kai's soften ever so slightly. His beautiful hair had lost colour over the weeks, his skin with it to give off an appearance not far from wraithlike. He had shadows to match every nurse in the building, and his long-unstretched lips were fixed in a down-turned form. His mouth was rather small, Kai noticed, considering how wide it had always looked with every smile he used to wear. He still didn't turn his head to look at Kai, see how he had fared as a result of his disappearance. His dull eyes didn't even take the chance to blink, as Kai felt time slow down around them.

He uttered the first words he'd spoken in how long, he didn't know, in a croaky voice which didn't belong to him and accompanied by a pain in the chest that wasn't his. 'Max,' nothing happened. 'tell me you can hear me.'

Max and his oddly rigid expression turned towards the window. 'Please don't make me turn and face you' he murmured.

'Please don't make me look elsewhere' Kai whispered in response.

The deep ocean eyes cast downwards as a sudden rush of liquid threatened to ooze it's way out of their corners. Keeping it in, Max swallowed and slowly turned his face in Kai's direction for a second time. Through a translucent sheet of sorrow he stared, bracing himself to show Kai what that cheerful face had become. A shadow is what it was now, a pale and ghostly visage of scars, with many more lurking within, invisible to the eye but as lasting as the rest.

Kai's chest contracted inside him. Those scars were his, no doubt about it. Nothing less could leave such a mark; it was the burning of Black Dranzer which sank permanently into his pale skin, forever to be a burden to him and a reminder of what he was, and who had defeated him. That last battle had done this to him. Kai's possession had allowed it; Kai had knowingly been controlling it. And now his punishment was thus; he had to watch the events which followed. Though not connected in any way to the reason Max was there, Kai could see the scars on the boy he had cared for once. He never could have foreseen this happening, but this was just what fate had rewarded him with. For everything he'd done to him, Max was soon to be taken, along with the autonomy Kai had lost long ago with him.

Autonomy and affections gone, the two of them remained quite empty in a room, nothing to possibly say, eyes finally opened to the way they could both be without them.

'I didn't want you to see me,' Max mumbled awkwardly, reaching up and fiddling with the material of the gown around his neck, stretching his fingers to hide the deep red enduring wounds on his collar bone. A feeble attempt, Kai felt, for he would never be able to forget where every mark which impaired the pale skin lay. His memory would for ever be brought to devastation with that image.

'…do you know why I'm here?' the blonde asked after quite a long pause.

Kai felt like asking him the same question, but instead he opened his lips a fraction and breathed out 'yeah…'

Max nodded and Kai looked on helplessly. 'Cancer is not entirely uncommon, I guess.' Max continued, more to reassure himself than the enigma standing before him. '…we were always told it could happen to anybody...'

But why did it have to happen to him?

The sentiments which had been gathering since he'd set into the room suddenly built up to an unbearable state, and Kai's mind began to fight in a civil war with itself. But what side he was on, he did not know; the side that told him to care and feel the pain, or the side which told him to turn his back and walk away. The sensation was agonizing. It was suffocation; a giant black wing coiled its way around him and cut off all connection he had with the world. Seeing nothing but the frail boy sitting helplessly in the bed, scarred from his own doing, something inside Kai beat hard against it's black shell, writhing and screaming 'let me go!'. And the real Kai could feel a heat in his pocket, a blaze to remind him of the force in control. It was never quiescent, not really.

'Kai?'

Suddenly he was blinking furiously, and the light returned to him. He stood facing the opposite wall, his breathing a little heavier than before. Turning around, he saw Max still staring at him with much the same passive vulnerability. His sallow skin seemed to have paled slightly more, though when he spoke his voice remained at the consistent soft tone which made Kai's throat close up to hear. 'Are you okay?'

Swallowing hard, and trying not to speak for fear of what he'd say, Kai nodded and walked back towards the blonde, standing beside him to take a closer look at what bright euphoria could become.

He said nothing in response to the last two things Max had said, but gently lifted his hand and moved Max's from the scar. He was cold, even in comparison to Kai, as though the circulation had already ceased to run in preparation. Kai almost shivered against the chilled skin but composed himself as he always had against his emotions. After all, they weren't in control of him, they weren't what he based his actions around. No, it was always about what It wanted…except this time. He turned towards the boy on the bed and his exposed scars and burns. It was about him this time.

'Listen, Kai,' Max had his gazed fixed on the opposite wall again as he spoke in a voice void of emotion, one which Kai admired but resented as it tore away at him like sharp ice. 'it won't be long now. I can be passed into a world free of misery and pain very soon, they believe. But I…' he looked straight into the blood red eyes which softened as they met the ever-familiar pools of oceanic blue. 'I want you to be with me on the day…on the day the time comes.'

Kai felt a wave of heat from the inside of his pocket, and dug his hand in to seize it in an attempt to quell its opposition. He gaped down at the boy he couldn't quite believe was referring to his own inevitable death with relief. The end of his short life…the only one out of the three in the room Kai believed worthy of being lived.

'You honestly want me there with you, after all I did to you? After all the time I've spent away?'

Max's eyes lowered for half a second in thought, before returning with his soft but decisive response, 'maybe so, but you're here now. And I want you there for me then too.'

Kai inwardly winced at the battle being fought in the depths of his mind, but his expression didn't change and he refused to break his stare. Finally, against all hostility, he remained fixated on the beautiful face and he promised he would be beside him.

'You have stuck by me in the worst of times,' he admitted, squeezing the metal beyblade of Black Dranzer as tight as he could, as though hoping the thing would crumble in his grip and free him to choose his own will to follow, without seeing the punishment for it later. 'I could never look at myself again knowing I didn't do the same for you. Max,' he took the pale hand in his one more time, against every power in his brain forcing him to remain detached. 'I will be there for you.'

oXo

It hadn't been longer than a week, but Kai knew these things always happened faster than they predicted. As the perceiving clock ticked with little patience, Kai took his steps in time to it and solemnly walked to the centre of the bridge. The rain which bore down on him was unforgiving as the clock, and lashed at his face while the wind caught at his coat.

It wouldn't be fitting to walk back in accompanied, and he knew it. It wasn't right to reappear to be with him, when something else still wasn't disposed of. He couldn't show his face again until this deed was done.

With every stride against the wind, the weakened face appeared in front of him. His senses told him that Max would be gone soon, and with every second that passed there wasn't a moment where he couldn't see him. The way he used to be, his cheerful disposition in the days where Kai took him for granted; the way he used to look into those red eyes, when there might have been something other behind them; and the face of stone he wore now, with every minute that passed him by, glancing at the clock and wondering where Kai was.

Anger spurred him on as he stepped up to the railing. Anger and almost blind rage for what It had done to him. And anger directed at himself for allowing it all to happen. That euphoric smile would never shine on him again; no more of the laughter and the idle conversations about nothing relatively important. Nothing would be there to make him laugh again, no smirk brought to his lips or fond chuckle to sound in his throat. It couldn't be done anymore, not without Max. Max wasn't coming back to him now; that laugh would only ever be there to haunt him in blissful resenting memory.

He reached into his pocket and seized the hard, cold metal, pulling it out to expose it to the biting cold and stabbing rain. He glared at it with all the hate he could muster, and prepared himself to throw it over, watch it sink below the water and be rid of it's curse for ever. He couldn't look Max in the face again, without knowing it was only he Max was looking back at.

It sat there, cold in Kai's grip, the bit-chip dull and its image frozen. It wasn't going to try and stop him; It wasn't going to intervene. Kai's glare faded as he waited for himself to toss it, and faltered more with every second he stood with it still sitting cold in his palm.

He couldn't do it. Black Dranzer was sitting back and waiting, and Kai couldn't being himself to destroy the one source of true power he had left. The feeling seeped through his body like black liquid running through his veins. It was a part of him now; they were a part of eachother. He and the dark phoenix were inseparable, even by his own free will. He felt it encase him warmly, like a welcoming seraph standing behind him and encasing him in Its wings. But this time the black shell didn't pose as a threat; its comfort pulled Kai's lips into a peaceful smile, no part of him resisting anymore. Their bond was unbreakable.

It didn't last for very long, and suddenly Kai was very aware of the world he'd been flung back into. Glaring down at the warm metal in his hand, he accepted with resentment that after so long, he would never be able to live on without it.

There was an instant where something passed over him, like a wave of the smoothest ice had washed right by. But this coldness wasn't callous and unforgiving; it was a comfort. A beautiful comfort which for the first time, made him want to weep. But he didn't feel the unbearable desolation for the soft breath of ice; it was for himself. He wanted to weep for himself, and the boy he truly had destroyed.

The moment passed, and the rain returned, replacing the wave with a harsh slash of wind. Kai's sorrow almost completely melted away, and he realised it at that moment. It was he who appeared once more, to abolish the weaker spirit of the two and bring Kai's mind back to where it was, if only for that fleeting instant where he passed by. He was gone, and Kai was spent. It would never allow Kai to release it, and Kai knew he would never truly allow it either. They were a part of each other now. But he knew then what he had to do, the only possible way to avenge.

Kai had sensed his passing, and knew that it was completely intentional. He had known where Kai would be; perhaps he had known from the moment Kai had promised to be with him. No, Kai hadn't been with him. But he would be. Little do the deceased know who might follow them. Little did the angel know. But Kai knew; this time he knew very well. Kai would be there with him soon. He wouldn't be alone for long.

'By your side, Max,' Kai whispered with a hoarse but defining tone; an apostrophe against the tears which would not fall, and the pain which he could no longer feel.

And gently assisted by the blowing wind, Kai took a final deep breath, and took off. His wings carried him like a bird; not the bird he still held clutched tight, forever in that unbreakable grip, but the valiant red phoenix he'd trapped forever with the rest. Dranzer was done with for eternity, and Kai knew that it was his turn now. He barely moved in his graceful flight as he soared towards his destiny, finally swallowed without a sound, into the deep blue depths below.

* * *

_(A/N):_ Ah man, I totally want to write the whole story now :P…but don't worry, I won't.

Aw, I just realised something. Poor Maxie never gets any happy stories from me. In _Happy Reunion_ he'd just attempted suicide, and now he's been lost to cancer :(. Right, in that case I solemnly swear, my next story about Max will be a happy one. On pain of death, I _will_ write a happy Maxie story at some point in the future!

Anyway, on another note…PLEASE REVIEW, IT'S MY 18TH BIRTHDAY!

…Hm, not a very optimistic birthday ficcy was it…oh well, I've been dying to write this for a while now anyway :). Thanks everyone!


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